Detroit , compared to the rest of my alternative destinations on the blog , it might not seem so special , but in fact Detroit is truly a special city and very different from the rest of America , a huge failed experiment of urban, industrial and social nature . The experiment started in the 40’s to 50’s when America owned a car building monopoly ( the German and Japanese auto industries were slowly recovering after the war ) and Detroit was one of the most prosperous cities in the world , and began construction of it’s urban highways to facilitate integration with the communities outside the city . People with money who wanted better living conditions , left the crowded and noisy city neighborhoods in favor to the new suburban homes , where they could display their happiness in their own house in a calm area . This phenomenon encouraged by the easy access of the newly built urban highways and especially by the auto giants ( Trio GM, Chrysler and Ford ) that dominates the city’s economy , who were constantly encouraging people to move out of town in to the isolated communities where they are forced to commute using newly bought cars from them , and in the absence of public transportation often a family was forced to purchase 2 or 3 cars to travel , gasoline prices were at a record low. All these factors triggered a massive exodus of population from the city , and in time the effects are beginning to have side effects. Obsolete highways could not handle the massive auto traffic , constant traffic jams causing much misery for commuters and as a result people have simply started to look for jobs closer , do their shopping and make their businesses closer to home . Businessmen noting the phenomenon did not take long until they began to move their shops , malls , banks and offices in the near towns closer to the people, leaving behind a Detroit increasingly empty. The final blow came later after the financial crisis when the auto giants have started to squeak , no longer being able to face the foreighn competition and were forced to close or reduce many of the auto factories of the city , leaving hundreds of thousands of people without job. Crime rate in the city which was already big has grown exponentially , scaring even more groups of people out of town .

Detroit today has only 700,000 inhabitants, 60 % lower than the 1950 peak of 1.8 million , half of the population is extinct in the period 2000-2010 . And the city hall in the absence of a large tax base , was forced to slash education budgets , cleaning, and especially public safety budgets . The city is now one of the most bizarre of America and the world , is full of abandoned structures and entire neighborhoods stand empty, empty abandoned skyscrapers that awaits new tenants for years, empty hospitals, schools , theaters , churches, railway stations and massive abandoned structures altogether reminiscent of the good old days of the city. A simple walk through the city center and even you can notice how empty the streets are , wide boulevards are rarely filled with cars . In July 2013 the city declared bankruptcy and the future is uncertain , but as history has proven , as quickly as it fell quickly , it can also rise . A paradise for photographers and urban explorers . Some parts of the city are nice , the city hall rehabilitated some central areas in an effort to clean the city’s image , but the road is long. Enjoy the pics (not mine).